EAA Chapter 486

It was a dark and dreary early December night with temperatures below freezing and sleet coming down. However, in the EAA Chapter 486 (EAA) meeting room at the Oswego County Airport located in Fulton, New York, it was warm, friendly and inviting inside. And a hot spaghetti supper was being prepared in the large kitchen!

My control line flying buddy, Steve Dwyer, had invited me to the December monthly meeting of the EAA Chapter that he belongs to (and was a former Vice President of). I had wanted to pay this EAA Chapter a visit for over a year now after first learning about it last year from Steve. The stars and schedules had finally aligned and allowed me to attend this December meeting.

By meeting (er…dinner) time, the dining room was full to capacity and the evenings events got underway. After dinner, the main event was a presentation by the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) of Oswego County. EAA allows the CAP to use their facilities for meetings and events and, in exchange, the CAP was updating the EAA on their mission, operations, and flight activities. It was a very well executed and received presentation by the CAP.

After the CAP presentation, I was asked to give a brief, ‘on the fly’, overview of FlyBoyz. I gladly did so and my description of the blog seemed to be well received. After the meeting, I was asked if I would be willing to return to a future monthly meeting and present my experiences with Marine One to the EAA. That’s an ‘affirmative’.

Once the formal meeting broke up, Steve gave me a tour of the EAA hanger facilities and planes. I’ll let the photos do the talking on that part of the evening. When that tour was completed, Steve took me to another hanger where his plane is maintained. His plane is gorgeous and will be the subject of a separate FlyBoyz post…don’t miss it!

My visit to EAA Chapter 486 was very enjoyable. I was greeted by warm, friendly aviators, fed dinner, saw a great presentation, and got to crawl around airplanes… a great evening! If you are ever driving or flying by the Oswego/Fulton area, stop in and pay these folks a visit. You won’t be sorry you did!

Here then are photos of the EAA planes I saw Friday night. The photos are displayed in both a ‘Gallery’ format (above) for quickly scanning thru them and also in a captioned ‘Light box’ format (below) which allows for zooming in on individual pictures by clicking on them.

The white monoplane is a Ran’s S-10 Sakota single-engine, two-seater side-by-side configuration, mid-wing monoplane designed by Randy Schlitter for aerobatics and manufactured by Ran’s Inc.. The Dakota is available in kit form for amateur construction. Production of the S-10 was ended as part of Ran’s extensive reorganization of its product line on June 1, 2006, after having been available for 18 years, but the S-10 was reintroduced in about 2009 and is again available. One of the EAA members, Mark Penell, acquired this partially completed kit and with the help of another member completed it last year. He already has 150 hours on it but had been experiencing propeller problems. However, Steve believes that this has been worked out.

This yellow plane is a Taylorcraft of 1940’s vintage.

This yellow plane is a Piper J-3 Cub and is also of 1940’s vintage.

Both the Taylorcraft and the Piper Cub are owned by a flying club based out of the EAA hanger and are available for rental flights.

Steve believes that the blue and yellow ultra-lite is a Kolb but is not sure. It has been in the hanger for almost two years and the owner uses it often during the warmer weather.

The biplane is an Acro Sport II which is a tandem two-seat aerobatic sports plane designed by US aviation enthusiast Paul Poberezny in the 1970’s. It is intended for amateur construction and is scratch built from plans. It is an enlarged version of Paul’s previous Acro Sport I, sized up to carry two people. The Acro Sport II is a short-span biplane of conventional tail dragger configuration, typically built with open cockpits and faired main undercarriage. Its structure is fabric-covered, steel tube fuselage and tail group, with wood wing structures. One of the EAA members, Dan Williams, has been building a plans built (not a kit plane) Acro Sport II for quite some time. He purchased this red Acro Sport plane last fall.

Given my activities with the Curtiss Museum and Restoration Shop in Hammondsport, this sign caught my attention! It hangs from an exterior wall of the EAA restoration shop and was constructed by one of the EAA members in honor of the Curtiss planes that have visited their facility. The Curator of the Curtiss Museum visits the EAA on occasions and provides updates on museum activities.

There is a separate restoration shop in the EAA hanger that is specifically used for aircraft construction and maintenance. Currently, this Cessna 150 is in the shop for some work. The walls of this shop were ‘decorated’ with some wonderful aircraft paraphernalia and I could have spent an hour just looking at all of it.

Besides building and flying the real things, many of the EAA members are active or former model aircraft builders. The entire EAA facility is decorated throughout with model planes, some still operational, that members have donated to the EAA over time. Here is an example of a great display of some of the donated models.

This yellow low wing is a RV9A and is Steve Dwyer’s personal plane. As already mentioned, I will be presenting a separate FlyBoyz post focusing on this plane so this is just a sneak peak at it!